Apologies.  I may have posted this twice.

Hopefully this one has the pictures

 

My New Unraid Box

Gigabyte H67MA-USB-B3 Motherboard

Intel i3 2100 processor (Socket 1155)

4GB Corsair XMS3 DDZR3 ram

2 x Wingsonic 3 into 2 bay Sata 2 enclosures

2 x Adaptec 1430sa Sata2 PCIe controllers

8 x Western Digital WD20EARX 2tb Drives (Room for 12 drives)

Coolermaster  RC-692 advanced case

Coolermaster GX550 power supply

Sandisk cruser flash drive 4gb

Comments

I chose this motherboard because it was compact, Had 2 x SATA3 connectors, 4 Sata2 connectors and a PCIe8 and a PCIe4 slot.

I use the sata3 connectors for the Parity and the cache drives.

Currently it runs 8 x 2tb green drives and can hold up to 12 drives.

I’ve only just installed the Hotswap bays.  It ran for about a month on the 6 internal drives without errors.

I have 2 spare ports on the adaptec controllers, so I might increase the capacity to 14 drives if I can find a suitable bracket to hold the drives.  I’ll worry about that if I ever need them.

I removed the top fan in the case, to reduce noise. (Not needed)  The front and back fans produce adequate air flow.

The case has rubber mounted brackets for the drives, so it runs very quiet.

I like this case because it allows the cabling to enter from the back, which makes the front look quite neat.

I mounted a USB header inside the case to get the Flash drive out of the way.  I had to file a little bit off the bracket so that it fitted neatly between the backplane screws and used these screws to clamp the header down.

I know I don’t need 4gb of ram but that was the smallest amount I could buy.  Wasn’t very expensive.

Possibly socket  1155 and i3 are also overkill, but I wanted to build the machine using current technology.

Even so, the cost per gigabyte of data is much lower and faster compared to an off the shelf NAS device.

I haven’t done the power figures etc yet, but I don’t think it will use much. The processor is rated at 65W when flat out and the green drives are low power users.

Can you post at gigabytes page your motherboard?  It uses Realtek RTL8111E ?

 

Sent from my LG-P990 using Tapatalk

Great... one more i3 socket 1155 build!

 

And how Green is your server ? Did you measure the power in watts ?

 

Drive temperatures in Parity Check ?

  Model / Serial No.                                                    Temperature

parity WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA6667327        29°C         

disk1 WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA6667406          27°C 

disk2 WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA6646413          28°C 

disk3 WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA6659947          * (off)

disk4 WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA6657777          27°C 

disk5 WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA9374517          24°C 

disk6 WDC_WD20EARX-00P_WD-WCAZA9371667          24°C 

cache WDC_WD20EARX-00PASB0_WD-WMAZA5812381 26°C 

 

I haven't done a power check yet.  Will post when I do.

 

I test ran it for a month to make sure no motherboard compatibility issues etc and added the sata controllers and hot swap bays yesterday.

The temp readings above are in the middle of receiving backups from a small business server and a workstation as well as 3 other parallel folder transfers from another workstation.  So I think those temps will be typical.

(Disk 5 and 6 are in the hot swap bays)

I took note of the comment about the RTL8111E lan controller and ran a test.

I transferred 119gb of data to the cache drive and the average throughput was 59mb/s, peaking to 65mb/s.  It took a little over 30mins.

I haven't found any issues with the Lan controller so far.

The syslog reports the controller as a RTL8168b/8111b Not sure whether that is relevant or not.

I am wondering whether power supplies might be a factor in the rtl8111e issues. ie if the power supply is not up to scratch the operating voltage might be a bit down.

Just a follow up on this machine.  It has been running 24/7 for over 4 years now.  There was a bit of doubt about the use of Gigabyte MB/s at the time and the network controller.  This has proved to be not an issue and the machine is still under heavy use.  The only mods done since was the addition of a drive cage to hold an extra 2 drives.  I had 2 spare ports on the Sata controller so decided to utilise them.  The cage bolted to the existing internal cage without any needed modifications.  It is still running Version 4.7

You might notice that the small fans that were on the wingsonic hotswap bays are now missing.  Those little fans never seem to last, so I removed them.  The existing cooling in the case is adequate to keep things running without them.

Is this in "production" for you?

 

I just can't believe that you are still on 4.7

 

EDIT: oh, i see you built a second server running V6

The i3 is still on 4.7.  It wasn't broken, so I didn't fix it.  I will upgrade it soon.  It is used purely for storage and is still going strong. I am still getting my head around the new v6 server. It will take over some of the duties of the i3 and the i3 will become purely a backup storage device.

 

The only mods done since was the addition of a drive cage to hold an extra 2 drives.  I had 2 spare ports on the Sata controller so decided to utilise them. 

 

I have the exact same case on an old computer. Where did you get the dive cage that hold the 2 exta drives? How is it attached?

 

Thanks.

 

H.

http://www.coolermaster.com/case/case-accessories/haf-stacker-storage-kit/

I just checked the supplier I got the cradle from.  They don't have it any more. I'm not sure it was a coolermaster cradle but it might have been.

The picture shows the existing case disk holder showing the mounting holes.  The cradle just screwed straight on using standard case screws.

It actually holds 3 drives but I only had ports for 2.

Hope this helps somehow.

Probably a bit late now but here it is:-

http://computeronline.com.au/products_pic.php?C_ID=24&S_ID=241&PROD=45133

 

It's a SilverStone CFP53.  It bolts straight onto the drive bays of the Coolermaster case above using hard drive screws.